It's no secret that Linux doesn't have the same level of hardware support as Windows. In some cases, Linux systems can be run where Windows wouldn't dream of being installed. On the other hand, Windows has great support for many recent devices that Linux doesn't support (either in full or in part). The wireless device on my ThinkPad is:
[Doug@FLASHMAN-SL ~]$ lspci -nn | grep -i real 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01)
The appropriate driver for this (found from ELRepo.org) is kmod-r8192ce. I followed the instructions on the website to add ELRepo as a repository and then had it install kmod-r8192ce. After a restart, things seem to be looking good:
[Doug@FLASHMAN-SL ~]$ lsmod | grep 8192 rtl8192ce 51681 0 rtl8192c_common 45957 1 rtl8192ce rtlwifi 71279 1 rtl8192ce mac80211 423615 3 rtl8192ce,rtl8192c_common,rtlwifi
While this got the basic wireless working, things were not perfect. After connecting to any network, either secured or unsecured, I would be able to surf the web for a few minutes.... followed by nothing. The connection would just die after a few minutes (or seconds). When the connection would drop, my computer would still think I was connected, and disabling and re-enabling the network or disconnecting and reconnecting would not solve the problem. I had read that IPv6 sometimes can interfere with the network connectivity if it isn't being used (I am still on IPv4), so I appended ipv6.disable=1 to the kernel in my /etc/grub.conf file. Still not working great, but marginally better. Eventually, I began using a kernel from the 3.5 branch as opposed to the Scientific Linux 2.6 kernel. Together with the ipv6.disable=1, this seems to result in a solid connection.
Future goals
- Whenever I update my kernel (and thus grub.conf file), a new kernel becomes the default... which is sometimes a 2.6 branch kernel. When I don't interfere with the start up, it can be frustrating when my internet dies again. I would like to have grub not change the kernel that I am running from 3.5 to 2.6. [Edit 2: For the time being, I am manually updating grub.conf after each kernel update.]
- I need to check if ipv6.disable really offers benefits when used with the kernel version 3.5.
- I'd like to figure out a way to display code snippets on wordpress. [Edit: It seems that this functionality is possible through wordpress plugins, but as my blog is currently hosted on wordpress.com it is not possible to use any. A medium-term goal of mine is to create a new website that includes this blog as a feature, so when that happens I'll re-edit this post to add in code snippets.] [Edit 3: I installed the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin after moving to WordPress.org. Apparently, though, this feature is available on WordPress.com, though I didn't figure that out at the time. Of course, one could just use <pre> tags, which I had forgotten about.]
